Join us as a visit from a troubled female neighbor kicks off a strange series of events for a man who struggles to distinguish between reality and tulpas—"invention[s] of my mind."
In Thirteen Question Method, a man hides out in a Hollywood apartment from a past he doesn’t want to remember and a present he is desperate to avoid. The summer sky is thick with ash, and across the courtyard, his neighbor won’t stop screaming. When she asks for help in an inheritance dispute with her estranged stepmother, he is drawn into a web of fear and manipulation, until he begins to lose sight of what is real. Echoing the work of Dorothy B. Hughes and James M. Cain, David Goodis and Albert Camus, Thirteen Question Method is a churning psychological thriller, set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles. In a novel inspired by classic noir, David L. Ulin excavates the depths of a disintegrating soul.
David L. Ulin is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the novel Ear to the Ground. His fiction has appeared in Black Clock, The Santa Monica Review, Scoundrel Time, and Zyzzyva, among other publications. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Ucross Foundation, he is a Professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the journal Air/Light.
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, and These Women. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France, and has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy taught creative writing at Studio 526 in Los Angeles's Skid Row. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.
